Does it matter which cable router I buy

nafe12 · 11-09-2008, 10:57

Using virgin cable via a modem; want to go wireless.

Does it matter what cable wireless router I use?
E.g. I see that virgin uses the Netgear WGR614 - not sure of the differences between v3 and v6 (and most people selling don't know/arent aware)

Was just going to hit ebay and get something cheap. But thought I'd ask for recommendations, pitfalls, etc

Cheers!

**Chris** · 11-09-2008, 11:00

Various people on here have their favourites because of the way you can configure or customise them, but basically any router will do (so long as it's not an all-in-one adsl modem/router, which won't work with your cable service).

The Linksys WRT54g always gets a good write-up on here.

nafe12 · 11-09-2008, 11:04

seems to be a few WRT54G models, spose much-of-a-muchness?

I mean they all plug into the Virgin cable modem, etc?

**Chris** · 11-09-2008, 11:10

Yes, they do. Take your pick and away you go. Just make sure your PC has an ethernet port and a wireless card. You'll need wired ethernet to do the initial set-up of the router, then you can go wireless after that.

The router will connect to the modem via an ethernet cable.

nafe12 · 11-09-2008, 11:35

champion - thanks

AbyssUnderground · 11-09-2008, 15:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by nafe12

seems to be a few WRT54G models, spose much-of-a-muchness?

I mean they all plug into the Virgin cable modem, etc?

Do some research into the memory they have incase you want to use a third party firmware like DD-WRT. The WRT54GL I have has 16MB, and I think thats the maximum they offer.

If you're not fussed, any WRT54G version will do.

dragon · 11-09-2008, 19:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by AbyssUnderground

Do some research into the memory they have incase you want to use a third party firmware like DD-WRT. The WRT54GL I have has 16MB, and I think thats the maximum they offer.

If you're not fussed, any WRT54G version will do.

It's worth the extra for the WRT54GL as the price isn't that much different and the 3rd party firmwares are pretty good

jamiefrost · 11-09-2008, 21:01

Depends on what speed broadband you have, some routers Max out at 10meg between the WAN and the LAN ports.

There is a thread somewhere on here that had a list of routers that could cope with 20meg, some people may get a shock if they opt for 50meg.

I think all of the WRT54G range can cope with 20meg

JJ

badhairday · 11-09-2008, 21:12

I will soon be a VM customer and was hoping to use my Belkin 7633 wireless Mod/rout with the 20meg service.
I am curious why a modem/router won't work with cable.

AbyssUnderground · 11-09-2008, 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamiefrost

Depends on what speed broadband you have, some routers Max out at 10meg between the WAN and the LAN ports.

There is a thread somewhere on here that had a list of routers that could cope with 20meg, some people may get a shock if they opt for 50meg.

I think all of the WRT54G range can cope with 20meg

JJ

The WRT54G range has a 100Mbps WAN port as far as I know so its good for up to 100Mbps.

dragon · 11-09-2008, 21:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by AbyssUnderground

The WRT54G range has a 100Mbps WAN port as far as I know so its good for up to 100Mbps.

So do a lot of routers but actually they cannot cope with the processing required for the higher speeds.

Perticullarly if they start doing stuff like QOS.

I think the WRT54G can easily route @ 30Mbit/s so when VM roll out 50Mbit they may or may not cope depending on the Firmware and what features are enabled.

I just turned off QOS on my WRT160N and actually found it made things faster, I think it wasn't playing nice with TCP Vegas which I understand is turned on by default on DD-WRT 24SP1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_Vegas

11-09-2008, 22:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhairday

I will soon be a VM customer and was hoping to use my Belkin 7633 wireless Mod/rout with the 20meg service.
I am curious why a modem/router won't work with cable.

Because in general router/modem combos are for adsl via a telephone connection, not designed for cable.

Virgin Media will supply the modem you need during the installation - unfortunately you will need a new router, as your Belkin 7633 will not work.

badhairday · 11-09-2008, 22:39

Thanks homealone

dragon · 12-09-2008, 00:01

Becuase most ADSL routers treat the Inbuilt ADSL modem as the WAN (internet) interface and therefore will only do the required Network Address Translation that allows multiple machines to share a single IP address on the Modem port.

There are a few around that can be reconfigured to actually have one of their lan ports become the Wan ports, but these tend to be few and far between.

I think some speedtouches it can be done via the CLI (if someone REALLY wanted to)